Fresh Start
by Challenger2011
Summary: Neal was able to escape Pan's curse with Emma and Henry, giving them the chance to live the life they had secretly wished for. But when a new enemy makes an appearance and Storybrooke is returned, they are thrust back into their old lives. Now they are faced with a choice: reunite with their families or keep living their fantasy life. AU for second half of season 3.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **After being crushed by the turn of events in the second half of season 3, I decided to try to spin my own tale in place of it. I really needed some happy family moments with Emma, Neal, and Henry.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Once Upon a Time or any of the characters in it.

* * *

"_You were created to break the curse, and once again, you can escape it," Regina explained. _

"_No," Emma refused. "No, we'll both go back with all of you." _

"_I'm afraid that can't happen. I can't see Henry again. I have to pay the price or none of this will work." _

"_And what of us that were unaffected by the original curse?" Hook spoke up. _

"_Anyone who was in the Enchanted Forest, and anyone I brought from other lands, when the curse was cast will be sent back to where they came from," Regina explained. "There's no escaping that." _

"_And people who weren't?"_

_ Everyone glanced over at Neal. _

"_I technically would have still been in Neverland when you cast the curse," he reminded. "So how does that effect me? Could I leave with Emma and Henry?"_

_ Neal glanced over at Emma with a hopeful expression. He knew that the two of them still had a lot to work through, but he hated the thought of losing her again so soon after they had been reunited. And the thought of being out of Henry's life made him feel sick. If there was no way of returning if he was sent back to the Enchanted Forest, then he was going to find a way for him to stay. _

"_I don't know. It's possible that you could escape, or you'll get across the line to just disappear once Storybrooke does. I can't guarantee that you can get out." _

"_That's a risk I have to take."_

* * *

"_Are you okay with me coming?" Neal asked Emma as they drove the bug to the town line. "I know that there's a lot we gotta talk about and work out, but I don't want to have to leave you and Henry." _

"_It's fine," she assured. "I know you don't want to have to go back there and you deserve to have time with Henry. How are you holding up?"_

"_As good as I can be. I'll feel a lot better if this actually works... Are you going to be okay?" _

_ Emma wasn't sure how to answer. Was she going to be okay? She was about to say goodbye to her parents, the parents she had gone her whole life without. It didn't feel fair to have to say goodbye to them already. But she didn't have a choice, she had to do it so she could stay with Henry. Ever since he had come into her life, she couldn't imagine her life without him in it. _

"_I'm as good as I can be," she echoed back Neal's answer as she put the car in park. _

_ As they got out of the car, Henry ran over to Regina, Neal went over to Belle, and Emma headed over to her parents. Emma didn't really consider herself one for long goodbyes, but this time she really needed one and she couldn't have it. There was so much she wanted to say, but it was time to leave before she even had a chance to. _

"_Emma," Regina stopped her before she reached the car. "There's something I need to tell you." _

"_What?"_

"_When Storybrooke disappears, it will be as if it never existed. And that includes your memories of it. None of you will remember being in Storybrooke, or meeting anyone here. You'll have gaps in your memory. But there is something I can do about that." _

"_You can make it to where we can keep our memories?"_

"_No, but I can do what I did to everyone here – give you new ones."_

"_Everyone here was miserable." _

"_They didn't have to be. My gift to you, is the good memories. A good life, for all of you."_

* * *

_1 Year Later_

_Tallahassee, Florida_

Neal Cassidy smiled as he glanced over at Emma as he helped her prepare breakfast. It had officially been one year since they had moved back to Tallahassee. He still didn't know why they had left in the first place. True, the job offer Emma had received had been a good one, and they'd had a lot of fun in New York and Boston, but Tallahassee was their home. So when the offer to transfer and move back to Tallahassee came up, they had agreed that it was the best choice. The house they had chosen had been far from the biggest and fanciest – not that they really had the budget for one of those houses – but it was the perfect size for the three of them.

"When we first met, did you ever imagine that our lives would be like this?" he asked her.

"Hmm, marriage, raising a kid, spending Saturdays at the beach, going to Disney World for a family vacation. Can't really say I was thinking of all of this, or even thinking it was a possibility, when I was stealing a stolen car," Emma shook her head. "It's stuff I would have dreamed of, but never would have expected to happen."

"You didn't think any of that stuff would ever happen for you?"

"Well maybe marriage and a kid would have been a possibility at some point, but not the beach and Disney. Speaking of our son, you and Henry stayed up late again playing video games last night didn't you?"

Neal turned away, so Emma couldn't see his face, "Why would you think that?"

"Considering the fact that he's not up yet, and you're purposely avoiding answering my question..."

"We thought we were at the end of the level, but we kind of lost track of time."

"You couldn't have just saved the game and finished it tonight?" she asked. "It was a school night."

"I know, I'm sorry," he apologized. "You want me to go wake him up?"

"Yes, please."

Walking into Henry's room, Neal wasn't entirely surprised to see that the twelve, soon to be thirteen, year old was already starting to wake up. That was a bit of a relief. After all if he was already waking up, it shouldn't take him too long to get him out of bed.

"Hey buddy, it's time to get up," he gently shook him.

"Five more minutes," Henry sleepily mumbled.

"Sorry, but you've got school and you've already slept later than usual. Your mom's already figured out that we were up late."

Henry rubbed his eyes and sat up, "Why'd you tell her?"

"I didn't, she figured it out. You know you can't hide anything from her."

"True."

"Breakfast is almost ready, so come on so we can eat."

"Are we having hot chocolate?"

"Of course. Cinnamon is already on the table for you two."

"You really should try it, Dad," Henry said as he got out of his bed. "It's really good."

"I think I'll just stick to marshmallows and take your word for it."

Henry laughed, "We'll get you to try it one day."

"Get him to try what?" Emma asked, glancing over at them as they walked into the room.

"Cinnamon in hot chocolate. I think he forgets that we can be stubborn."

"I can be stubborn too," Neal protested. "Besides you haven't convinced me to try it yet."

"It'll happen." Emma gave Henry a knowing smile, that Neal caught.

He glanced at his mug of hot chocolate and picked it up.

"You put cinnamon in it, didn't you."

"No, I put in marshmallows."

"You put in marshmallows and cinnamon."

"Is there anything interesting happening at school today, Henry," Emma changed the subject, which was confirmation for Neal that he was right.

"Not really," he replied. "We're mostly just talking about some projects. Actually I need you guys to go talk to Ms. Johnson."  
"Why?" Neal asked in surprise. It wasn't often that they actually had to go talk to one of Henry's teachers.

"We're doing a family tree project, and I don't think she believed me when I said that neither of you have parents, so I can't really do it."

Emma and Neal exchanged a glance. They had always known that there would be a possibility of Henry having to do some sort of school project on his family one day. It was a complicated situation, and they knew that they probably shouldn't be too surprised that some would have a hard time believing it. Still they probably should have prepared more for something like that.

Emma told Henry that she would call his teacher, and would try to set up a meeting. And with that the topic was dropped while they finished eating, until Neal brought it back up after Henry left to get dressed.

"Maybe we should have the school put it on file that Henry can't participate in any family research projects in the future. It could just be something like, 'Neal and Emma Cassidy have no other family relations to speak of, so Henry will be unable to do any projects researching his family tree or anything with '."

"We'll probably have to after we talk to Ms. Johnson. She'll probably ask us why we didn't have it written down in the first place."

"We don't like talking about it, so we didn't think of putting it down?" Neal suggested. "It's the truth."

"I get the feeling that we're going to end up having to talk about it a lot.."

"Maybe we'll get lucky, and she'll be really understanding and won't want to ask us too many questions about it."

"I don't even know how to begin that conversation with Ms. Johnson..."

"Neither do I. It should be at least a day until we have to meet with her, right? So we should have time to work it all out. You think you could take the day off?"

"Probably, why?"

"Well I was just thinking that after you call Henry's teacher, the two of us could spend the day at the beach and just forget about the fact that we're going to have to go through that awkward conversation later."

"Honestly, we should probably just work on what we're going to say to his teacher. That would be the responsible thing to do."

"It's not as fun though. I think we deserve a day off. I mean, when was the last time we did something just the two of us? Besides, what's there really to explain. We'll probably make her feel so uncomfortable, she won't want to talk about it long anyway. And if you think it'll help, I might could muster up a few tears and really make her feel bad for putting us all in this uncomfortable situation. Family trees are boring anyways, they should do something else."

Emma had to admit that she agreed with that sentiment, though wistfully she wished she could fill in at least a few leaves.

"Yeah, the beach would be nice."

"Alright, then it's settled," he smiled before taking a sip of his hot chocolate. "Bleh. I think I'll stick to my marshmallows, cinnamon can be yours and Henry's thing."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **I had hoped to have this chapter finished and up a lot sooner, but life got in the way. Of course on the bright side, now that season 3 is finished, from the things I've heard, I know what all I want to change. Thanks so much for the reviews, alerts, and favorites, I really appreciate the feedback and it keeps me inspired! :)

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Once Upon a Time or any of the characters in the show.

* * *

A day at the beach really was something that Emma had needed. It was nice just having a day to relax, and really she couldn't remember the last time she and Neal had gone there with it just being the two of them. Normally beach trips were reserved for the weekends when Henry would be able to come along. Emma had actually somewhat expected their son would be a little annoyed by the fact that they were going to the beach while he was at school, but Henry had seemed fine with it. So as soon as she had called his teacher and scheduled a time for her to come over and meet with them, she and Neal headed out. It was a nice day, and even though it was near the end of the week, the beach was still relatively empty in comparison to how it would be on the weekend or during the summer.

She and Neal walked hand in hand down the beach, the water lapping against their legs. They talked briefly about what they were going to say to Henry's teacher when they talked to her tomorrow night, and then changed the subject to start planning on a future vacation for the three of them.

"We just went to Disney last summer," Emma laughed. "Don't you think the same trip two years in a row would be overdoing it?"

"We didn't ride everything there, and Henry really seemed to like it," Neal shrugged. "We don't have to go back though. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know, maybe go somewhere we've never been before. We could go up North a little and stop in the mountains and rent a cabin. We've never done that. Plus there are probably places with amusement parks nearby, so we can combine both of our vacation ideas."

"That would work," he agreed. "I'd really be fine with going wherever you wanted to go, but I appreciate you throwing in an amusement park for me and Henry."

"Hey, it's for me too. Especially if they have a swing carousel."

A big grin broke out on Neal's face. Swing carousels were his and Emma's personal favorite ride to ride together. Their first date had been on one after all, it made sense for it to be their favorite. It actually made him wish that the beach they were on was one of the ones that had a mini amusement park on the place. He knew that a lot of them didn't have many rides, but he didn't think it would be much of a stretch for a swing carousel to be at one. Of course they would have had to have went further out to find one of those, and they didn't have time to do that. They both had wanted to be back home before Henry got home from school, and they were not going to risk being stuck in traffic.

"Well then, I guess I'll have to find a place that has that nearby. Or maybe one that has multiple ones nearby."

"That would be perfect," Emma laughed before giving Neal a quick kiss. "Now come on, lets go get something to eat. We can plan out our vacation more when we get home, so Henry can help."

The two of them walked off towards the direction of the restaurants, not realizing that they were being watched.

* * *

Pirates rarely seemed to be the type of people who would do something just for the sake of it being the right thing to do. There was typically some reward involved when they did a good deed. Gold, jewels, just something to make it feel worth their while. Killian Jones had been hoping that what he was doing would earn him a step closer to winning Emma Swan's heart, but as he watched her and Neal through his spyglass, he was doubtful that would be the case. She would be grateful, when she had her real memories back, that he had brought the memory potion for them. That would be all though. He could already tell that he had lost the battle for her heart.

It had been dismaying to see that under their cursed memories, Emma and Neal were married. Even after their real memories returned, they would remember the false ones. They would know about the life they could have had together, and they would remember how happy they were. They would want to go back to it, and because of that, they would make things work out. Which left him helping simply because it was the right thing to do – which really didn't seem like something he would normally do.

He looked back at Neal, Baelfire. Baelfire had been like a son to him once, granted that had been short lived. Killian had made a mistake, he knew that. He shouldn't have sold the boy out to Pan. He regretted that, and maybe this was his chance to really make up for it. There would be no reason for them to be rivals, they could work towards being friends. It was good that the two of them did have a past. It might would make Baelfire at least slightly willing to listen to him. If he had understood Regina's curse correctly, only the past eleven years would have false memories. Everything else would be the same, which meant that Baelfire would still remember him. True it wouldn't be the best memory, but it would at least be easier to explain things to him than it would be to Emma. He was going to need his help when it came to her. Though to be fair convincing either of them to drink the memory potion would be quite the challenge.

"Are you an actor?"

The sudden voice of a child brought Killian out of his thoughts. Turning he saw a young girl looking at him curiously.

"What?"

"Are you an actor? You look like a pirate. Are you in a play?"

"Maybe I'm really a pirate."

"No, you're not," she laughed. "Pirates don't live here."

"Maybe I'm not from here."

"Well if you think that you're really a pirate, you might be crazy. You should take some medicine. My uncle sometimes thinks he's an astronaut, but then he takes his medicine and he's back to being just a regular guy again."

"I am not crazy. Now run along, you shouldn't be talking to pirates, least of all the notorious Captain Hook."

"Well if you really are 'the' Captain Hook, then Peter Pan is going to get you."

"No, Peter Pan is dead."

The girl gasped before busting into tears.

"Mommy, he killed Peter Pan!" she wailed running off.

"I didn't kill him!"

Killlian had to admit that the Land Without Magic was certainly a strange place. The child should have been happy that such a vile, evil creature like Pan was dead, not weeping about his demise. He looked back towards Emma and Baelfire. It would be a challenge to get them to trust him, but then he wasn't really one to back down from a challenge.


End file.
